I have a chronic problem with arrhythmia brought on by stress and I’d really like to try to learn how to relax. Trust me, it’s not as easy as it sounds.
Meditation seems like it might be a fruitful path for me. Can anyone help me get started, point me in the right direction, or otherwise share tales of how meditation did or didn’t work for you? All input welcomed with very tense but open arms.
The basic technique (or at least the one I use) is:
Find a comfortable position where you’re not likely to fall asleep or lose your balance. The lotus is traditional, but by no means required. If you can do a lotus position, but only painfully, don’t try to meditate in it. Sitting on the floor is likewise traditional but not required- you can use a comfortable chair, if your back doesn’t like sitting unsupported.
Close your eyes.
Focus your attention on your breath, as it goes in and out.
When (not if) other thoughts come up, notice that they were there, but bring your attention back to your breath.
Are you open to trying out yoga? For some folks, trying to start meditating by sitting there and figuring out what to do with your head can be tough. If you do yoga, it is a form of “moving meditation” - meaning: as you go through the poses and get comfortable, you start to “let go” mentally and allow your body to, well, “flow” from pose to pose. Before you realize it, your mind begins to adapt to this meditative state.
It can be an effective way to get comfortable with moving to a meditative state - and it is great for you physically and provides its own stress relief.
I’m open to it, so long as it doesn’t require a class to get started. I don’t have time to fit a class in.
I agree with both of the previous posters, but would add that’s it’s enormously more accessible if you have a teacher at first. I’m sure someone near you teaches meditation: try any local yoga places, universities, co-ops, or even the YMCA.
It was very helpful for me to have someone who would periodically give reminders - “Let go of whatever you’re thinking about. Focus on your breathing” “No, really, remember your breathing.” “Hey, that breathing thing - why aren’t you focused on it?” etc… It’s hard work.
Also, while meditation has been very rewarding for me, there have been periods when coming to a quiet place mentally just revealed and highlighted how much pain I was in. During those times, meditation was quite distressing and it was helpful to have an instructor there to reassure me that this, too, is normal and part of the process.
If you can’t manage a class, I would definitely go for meditation rather than yoga - you can listen to tapes for meditation and get many of the same benefits, but trying to do yoga without someone there to help you get the alignments right has a real potential for injury.
I would highly recommend yoga. The exercise will help a lot with the stress and anxiety, and even the fast yogas are sort of meditational. You get very focused on your body and breathing and the here-and-now - which is essentially the same thing that Anne’s talking about.
There are all different styles, from the one where you hold poses for 5 minutes at a time, to the one where it’s almost aerobics. I like Ashtanga, which is a moving yoga, but even there the classes vary widely with the teacher. I’ve been to classes that were a serious workout, and I’ve been to classes that were very peaceful and meditative.
There are lots of yoga books and DVDs and stuff available, although I’d recommend classes to start with. For me, yoga at home isn’t nearly as effective.
If you’re in a town of any size, there are probably a lot of options as to class style and time. Or you could schedule private time with one of the teachers to fit it into your schedule.
As far as fitting it in - yeah, that’s my downfall when it comes to this stuff. What I’m finally starting to realize is that you (I) need a change of attitude. Exercise and stress-relief isn’t something you fit in, it’s something you have to make a priority.
It’s a hella lot cheaper and less time-consuming than a heart attack.
If you just want to do straight meditation, Anne Neville’s pretty much got it. I sometimes found a candle to be helpful to start with, as it gave me something else to focus on. I tend to be a multi-tracker, so having both a flame and breathing to concentrate on helped. But then again, I never got very far with meditation, so I’m not the best one to talk. 
ETA: Do you get that ‘heart jumping out of your chest’ thing? Man, that’s…disturbing!
And I would not recommend yoga. I’ve done the introductory asana class at the local Iyengar center twice. Both times, the whole eight-week class was painful and frustrating. The second time, I began to have problems with passing out while in certain poses. As the teacher said to us, we are beginners and at the beginning there is no meditation. We can’t even control our bodies yet, what makes us think we can control our minds?
If anybody wants to tell me he’s an asshole, be my guest. But it certainly wasn’t meditative or stress-relieving.
Moved MPSIMS --> IMHO.
I am a fan of Mental Workout’s iPhone apps- they have a few good guided meditation ones.
I’m also slightly obsessed with Andrew Johnson’s self-hypnosis iPhone apps. They are, hand down, the number one sure fire way I can get myself to relax. It’s like crack to me.
One thing to know: your thoughts WILL wander all over the place at first. That’s not only normal and OK, it’s nearly universal. You notice that you’re thinking about something else, then bring your attention back to your breathing, the same way you might do if your mind wandered in a lecture.
Your meditation is going to go better some days than it will on others. That’s also normal, OK, and nearly universal.
Don’t worry about how long you’re meditating for. 10 minutes at a time should help. I set a timer to go off when the 10 minutes are up, so I’m not looking at my watch all the time. You might not have this problem, but I did. There are fancy expensive meditation timers out there, but a cheap kitchen timer will do the job (I use a Minute Minder). If you have a smartphone, that would work, too.
I like candles, and I would use one, except for the Neville kitties. Candles can only be used in this house when someone’s alert and keeping an eye on them. Worrying about cats, dogs, or children burning the house down with a candle is not conducive to meditation.
My cats, for some reason, are very interested in being with me when I meditate. I’m not sure why this is, but they are. You might have the same thing happen if you have pets. I just deal with it as another distraction, like stray thoughts. If this is feasible for you, you might close the pets up somewhere where they can’t get to you. If you have a Siamese mix cat, like I do, that won’t help much. They can meow loud enough to be heard throughout the house, and they do, when they think they’re being excluded from something interesting.
How do these work? Could you describe “an average session” with either app? I went to your MW link and clicked on their Tour screen and got their guy basically saying their stuff is science-based and easy to customize to your needs - but he didn’t say what their stuff actually *was *and how one used it…
Meditation - either stationary or via yoga - takes practice; wavering in and out of concentration, adjusting to proper technique, etc. is part of any learning process. And, like pretty much any learning process, there is value in getting support from classes, videos, etc.
**jsgoddess **- I guess the bottom line is that there are a LOT of approaches to meditation and to HOW you sample these various types and take on the challenge of picking one that works for you and practicing at it. It sounds like you don’t have time for classes per se so perhaps an app, a DVD or I bet some youtube videos would all be worth exploring…
sit up straight (butt on a firm pillow on the floor, or a straight chair). eyes open staring at a close blank surface or looking at some regular nondistracting pattern is good. inhale slowly through your nose feeling the air pass through the nose, feel your lungs fill with air. then exhale feeling the opposite. focus on the feeling of breathing.
if you daydream then let the thought go. if you start making ‘to do’ lists or solving problems then just stop and try later.
even a few minutes at a time can help, ten minutes can work if that is what you have.
I have the older Mental Workout app. It’s basically just a guided meditation- they tell you to focus on your breathing for a while and as you do they provide some helpful hints about letting sensations wash in and out of perception, how to keep your mind on track, etc. It’s pretty slow, and has lots of empty space to simply meditate.
Andrew Johnson’s apps are self-hypnosis. He walks you through a part-by-part body relaxation session, and then takes you down into full-on hypnosis. Once there, he says some relevant things about whatever subject you have the app for. Basically he’s talking the whole time, but I’m usually out well before the end of the initial relaxation. Then he brings you back up to consciousness or he guides you to sleep for the night. Of course, you should take all this with a grain of salt. But the relaxation is pretty strong for me- a 15 minute power nap feels like a couple hours of nap, and when I listen at night, I’m out like a rock. I’ve also found his “suggestions” once under to be somewhat useful, at least by my casual observation.
I’ve started meditating the last couple of months - I took on an interim position at work that has easily tripled my stress levels and I was doing a lot of bringing stuff home with me/not sleeping/etc.
My basics are this:
I turn off the television/radio/phone so that I don’t get distracted, and head into the second bedroom.
I sit comfortably and start by focusing on my breathing, with deep full breaths, working to clear my mind with each breath, while I visualize my favorite place to be. As thoughts pop up, I visualize them as bubbles floating out of my head and away (this is an incredibly helpful image for me, because it’s not something that requires active effort to have leave me - they’re just going away).
Sometimes, when thoughts won’t stop, especially on a specific topic, I have to accept that I need to stop trying, write things out about it, and see if I can figure out a resolution - this happened this week, and once I did that, I was able to settle into meditation much more easily.
It might not be what some people would call the “right” way - but it’s working for me. Yoga has never been something that’s worked well for me. I do regular cardio exercise, which also helps, but I’m doing much better at keeping work stuff out of my head during non-work times since I started the meditation.
I think for relaxing, possibly guided meditation or guided imagery or other relaxing tapes might be a slightly different avenue to try. I don’t know if the apps even sven linked to are like that.
I’ve done a lot of meditating in the last year but the guided hypnosis tapes I listening to while preparing for my last birth (my easiest one too, coincidence?) were like instant mental vacations. I “woke up” from those feeling incredibly refreshed and relaxed.
Got it - thanks for spelling them out a bit…
I’ve taken several meditation workshops and been meditating for about a decade or so. There’s plenty one can get into depending on what one wants to get out of it, but as your primary focus is just on relaxation and stress relief, it’s pretty straight forward.
As others have mentioned, the most important part is getting a good comfortable position. You HAVE to be comfortable and well supported or you won’t be able to relax; however, you also don’t want to be so comfortable that you will fall asleep instead of meditate.
After you have that, really focusing on relaxing and breathing is important. For some people, it they will actually carry their thought through various parts of their body to focus on those muscles and then consciously relax them. By this I mean something like relax your toes, then your feet, then your calves…etc. It’s also important to focus on having a smooth and consistent breath.
After that, you have to relax your mind and this is probably the most difficult part for most beginners. Fortunately, there’s several ways to do it. Our minds have a way of filling in “dead air” with random thoughts, so it’s important to have a way of replacing that space with something else. As mentioned upthread, focusing on your breath can help a lot. You can also pick out a specific idea to focus on, you can count backwards, or you can even use a mantra where you pick something meaningful and think it, or even say it, over and over, to help your mind focus on that. From there, you will at times still have random thoughts, but its important just to acknowledge them and quickly put your mind back on whatever your focus is. It is helpful to minimize possible distractions by keeping the room somewhat dark and quiet, or with white noise or soft music. From there, it’s just relax, or continue to focus on whatever you’re focusing on, on something else that you want to meditate on, or simply focus on nothing.
Honestly though, some level of guidance is very helpful for starting out because I found that quieting that inner voice was definitely the most difficult part to nail down, but it shouldn’t be very difficult to find a CD or sound files online that can walk you through getting into a meditative state.
Good luck.
Look into the local Buddhist community in your area. Find out if they have a Buddhist center, or monastery, or some such facility. They likely have meditation classes and day-long retreats, open to the public. They teach a style of meditation called Vipassana Meditation, you could research that on-line. Really proper meditation takes some time and practice to learn well. You can read all about it, but it isn’t something you can just sit down and start doing well right from the start.
I sat in on one such session for about four hours one day. As little as I learned in that short period of time, I found even that minimal experience to be at least a little bit helpful. I’m sure people who take meditation seriously and practice it regularly for a long time can do much better.
There are lots of free meditation resources online. I find guided meditation (or self-hypnosis, which are both good search terms for youtube videos) is a good place to start for a beginner. You need to make sure that you’re breathing properly–fully into the diaphragm, so that your stomach expands rather than your chest. Letting a calm voice guide you through the steps and bringing you back when your mind wanders is the best way to get started. I wouldn’t start with meditating alone in the silence. Before you know it you’ll be fully absorbed in thinking about what to make for dinner tonight! (lol, but seriously you will)
I would classify myself as a casual or reactive meditator, as I don’t do it every day. Just when I start feeling stressed and/or my jaw gets all clenchy (which means I’m stressed, even if I haven’t mentally noticed it yet). It works very well for me, when I take the time to do it. It will be hard to focus at first (and even now it can be hard for me to focus when I’m super-stressed). But you will get better with practice. Also, somewhere along the line, I started automatically breathing from my diaphragm all the time. No more shallow chest breathing is another benefit I got out of regular meditation.
Some useful search terms, which you can either youtube OR google, are progressive muscle relaxation, passive progressive muscle relaxation, guided relaxation, breath meditation, whisper meditation, sleep meditation, and binaural beats. Here is a list of free guided meditation resources that I keep bookmarked. Obviously there are many, many more out there:
http://www.learningmeditation.com/room.htm
http://www.mymeditationgarden.com/guided-meditations/the-big-list-of-free-guided-meditations/
http://www.loyola.edu/counselingcenter/students/relaxation/
You may find that a male or a female voice works better for you. I prefer male voices, or very deep female voices (preferably with a British or Aussie accent!).
You could also try searching for meditation scripts, and recording them yourself for you to listen to later. I’ve never tried this, but I’ve heard it can work well for people who have panic attacks (I hate the sound of my own recorded voice, YMMV). Hope this helps, and feel free to PM me if you need more specific advice! 